DESCRIPTION: Perinatal asphyxia occurs in 2-4 per 1000 live term newborns and is responsible for the majority of non-progressive neurological deficits in children. In caring for the newborn baby after an asphyxic insult, assessing the degree of cortical injury is important both for developing a treatment plan and for counseling parents. Unfortunately, a bedside monitor to assess evolving post-asphyxic injury does not exist. We intend to build a Neonatal Cortical Injury Monitor (NCIM) to address this problem. It will acquire the electroencephalogram (EEG) and use two novel digital signal processing tools to provide feedback to the clinician. The first method involves a parametric spectral analysis to identify "dominant frequencies" of the EEG signal, and the second analyzes post-ischemic surges in the EEG called bursts and burst suppression events, using a "Teager Instantaneous Energy Operator." Our primary mission in Phase I is to build and test a laptop computer based prototyped device with an easy to use graphical user interface which displays standard and novel neuroelectric parameters. It is our long term goal to see the NCIM used by clinicians to assess cortical injury in asphyxiated babies. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: NOT AVAILABLE